Every purchase you make through these Amazon links supports DVD Verdict's reviewing efforts. Thank you!

All Rise...

Judge Eric Profancik thinks that fathers should teach their sons three things: how to fish, how to cope with girls, and how to avoid movies like this one.

The Charge

"Who's your daddy?" takes on a whole new meaning!

The Case

The oddest thing happened as I was compiling the information to put this
review together: It appeared that Daddy Who? didn't exist. I certainly
could pull it up at Amazon, but I came up high and dry over at IMDb. Seeing as
the title didn't exist, I decided to pull up the bio of a star from the film and
find the cross-link. No luck. Sean "I Love Frodo" Astin was my
starting point, yet his resume was clean of any title even remotely similar to
Daddy Who?. Well, after much back and forth, the obvious answer came to
be: This little film was originally known as Kimberly. Usually name
changes are linked better, but not in this case. This little snafu was quite
apropos for the film itself.

In looking at the cover, I had a sinking feeling that this would be a
"gay film"—not that there's anything wrong with that. The cover
shows four "strapping young lads" with the female star gazing upwards
at them. None of the men looked that manly (sorry, Samwise), so I deduced it
would be some quirky gay/straight five-way combo going on. Much to my surprise,
I was wrong. Everyone is straight in this film, but it's still a mess. The
rather simple story goes as follows.

Four friends regularly get together to do some rowing (the type that's all
the rage in Boston and the Ivy League schools), but they are not that good. As
luck would have it, the daughter of an Olympian rower strolls into town and is
convinced to become their coxswain. The four boys, all smitten by the saucy
beauty of their new coach, make a pact to not make any romantic overtures toward
her. They all break their promise, and she ends up dating all four guys. In due
course, she ends up in bed with each of them, and soon thereafter she announces
she's pregnant. But who's the daddy? We follow the curious relationship of the
four men and the one lady as they train for the upcoming regatta and as she
decides to have the baby.

Several simple and obvious thoughts came to mind as we learn she's pregnant.
First, anyone ever hear of a condom? I feared our leading lady, Kimberly
(Gabrielle Anwar), was quite the irresponsible slut; luckily, a throwaway line
tells us that the condom must have broken. Thank goodness! I'd hate to think
that nobody thought to use protection! Next, two words bubbled up: paternity
test. If you don't know who the daddy is, there are tests available to figure it
out. Why keep four guys in tow? Why make four guys suffer if you can determine
the real father? I say "suffer" because most of these guys are not
prepared to become a dad. But as the movie progresses, we learn there is no need
for a paternity test. Why? I won't tell you that, because it's a major spoiler
and we avoid those here at the Verdict.

>From the word go, I wanted to hate this movie. Something about either the
cover or the description on the packaging made my flesh crawl. While Daddy
Who? rises above engendering that level of bile in this reviewer, it is a
trite waste of celluloid. It turns out that these five people are neurotic,
selfish, and rather unlovable characters. They are barely formed caricatures,
riding a wave of clichés that propels the movie forward. There are almost
moments of enjoyment, but they are quickly drowned by torrents of angst-ridden
paranoia. If you've seen more than one romantic comedy in your day, then you've
seen everything this film has to offer—and doesn't have to offer. It has
nothing new, and it's a cursory paint by numbers of everything you don't want in
this type of film.

I will leave you with one final, odd resolution with Kimberly, as she has a
surprising turnabout by the end of the film. Throughout Daddy Who?, she's
just a beautiful woman who messed around with some guys and is now pregnant.
That's about it. She's just there. I didn't really care about her; in fact, I
didn't think much of her, which is odd considering she's the crux of the film.
Yet once she's delivered her baby, something happens that made me end up hating
her. Now that took me by surprise, for it was clearly not the intention of this
film for you to end up hating the leading lady.

This barebones disc from Ardustry Home Entertainment also resulted in
another unintentional outcome: I didn't know, nor could I fully deduce, the
video specifications of the DVD. I have no definitive data on the aspect ratio
of the film, but my best conclusion is that it is presented in a full frame,
1:33.1 ratio. Regardless, the video quality is acceptable for this movie that
flew under the radar. While colors are accurate and there are no significant
errors, the picture is a touch soft, with a mellow palette and reduced details.
You can choose either a Dolby Digital 5.1 or 2.0 mix, and either is suitable for
this dialogue-intensive film. I don't believe I heard the surrounds used one
time. All you'll find besides the movie on the disc are trailers for Daddy
Who?, Bitter Harvest, and
Sated.

Daddy Who? could be worse, but it's not a movie to seek out. It
didn't make a ripple back in 1999, and it won't make any waves on DVD in 2005.
If romantic comedies are your forte, don't touch this one. It feels like a
gloried Lifetime movie of the week.